Porsches are gauche. There's some lunatic who parks his DB9 on the street (3rd & King, if you're interested), which is a statement of utter contempt for us proles. "I don't mind parking my quarter-million dollar car at a meter because I have four more just like it at home".
I don't afford a Porsche. But if I could afford to buy one, I would still not buy it unless I could afford to park it anywhere. That is, there is a difference between affording to just buy a Porsche (perhaps as a status symbol), and affording to buy a Porsche and use it without care. I don't think that it takes a lunatic to park his DB9 on the street, just someone who bought the car just because he likes it and can do it. The feeling I get is that you are implying that a Porsche is a status symbol, whereas the owner thinks it's just his car, and does not care what any of "us proles" think.
I don't think I'd park an Aston Martin at a meter, particularly in SOMA; I'm perfectly comfortable parking my $4k used Jetta there, but I've seen plenty of cars significantly less awesome than a DB9 vandalized on the street.
Totally - then again DB9s are a poor choice for a daily driver - at least a Porsche can survive the grind - try driving anything British or Italian daily - won't end well!
Millions of people drive Italian cars every day. Fiat is taking over Chrysler. You'll see modern Italian cars in the US soon. They are not like in the 1970s.
Sorry, I should've said I'm talking about British/Italian exotics... Ferrari/Lambo/Aston/etc. are quite unreliable long-term (i.e. over 30K miles), but Porsche is like the everyday exotic - they're actually great long-term and available in 4WD (the Carrera4, Targa4, Turbo at least). Then again the truly rare American exotics (Saleen S7, Mosler, etc.) are even worse, but next to no one even has seen them.
Certainly not a blanket statement about about those cars. I love Fiats/Alfas, and I'm glad they might be coming to the States soon. Though British cars have had a bad rap for a long time (from the Brit Leyland / Rover / etc. days) - Jag is still pretty boring and only Land Rover is at all relevant / reliable.
Actually the biggest problem you'll run into with a Ferrari and similar in the states is that they ride so low that you will be continuously screwed by US speed bumps. Hearing the bottom of a Ferrari scrape against a speed bump is a truly tragic sound. For whatever reason Porsches actually do ride a bit higher, just enough to avoid speed bumps (although some curbs can still be a problem).
I learned that the hard way with my last car. A speedbump took off my midpipe! (pushed it up and the bolts snapped.. still intact just not connected) There was a good month when I was driving around Atlanta with a straight header V8.. surprised I did not get pulled over with how loud that thing was.
Hell - in my town my GTI scrapes all the time... I can only imagine having something lower. Porsche has the courtesy to put a replaceable black lip for the scrapes.
Seriously, come to London if you want to see this all the time. Walk through Mayfair and you'll see Porsches, Astons, Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys parked on the street all over. It's crazy...
Sometimes it's not contempt, it's just what you need to do to get a parking spot. :)
